There comes a player once in a while who creates optimism among the masses, even when there is pessimism all around. Delusion takes over and hopes continue to vanquish, with regards to the future.
For a long time, with T20 cricket becoming the most watched format of the game, Test cricket craved for a new flagbearer. A marketing man, who would sell the game’s most treasured format in a way that put bums on seat.
When he first debuted in 2011, Virat Kohli was seen as the quintessential modern-day cricketer. With tattoos on his arms and mouth waiting to let out words that is not desirable for all sections of society, he was touted to be India’s next big batting hope, one who could take the legacy forward from the previous generations.
The question, in most minds, however, was whether Kohli cared enough about Test cricket? Did he want to be known as a great Test match player, in the eyes of the watching public?
The first signs of his line of thinking for Test cricket came towards the end of 2013. India were embarking on a tour to South Africa with a batting line-up, minus the greats of Indian cricket.
It was to be Kohli’s first exposure to Test cricket in the rainbow nation and he was up against a genuinely top-drawer bowling attack in Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander, and Jacques Kallis.
Usually, when players go to South Africa they prepare specifically to counter the bounce on those pitches. The one method that is often heard is how they practice with wet tennis balls, which comes on faster than dry ones, thereby simulating the pace at which ball would come in the country.
There was nothing of that kind heard from Kohli, but in his first Test match on South African soil, he made a hundred of such discipline and authority that the public quickly understood that this guy meant business, as far as Test cricket was concerned.
In a later interview, Kohli revealed that prior to going to South Africa, he had visualized about playing a ‘proper pull shot’ against Steyn and managed to execute it perfectly on match day.
“In the Johannesburg Test, Dale was bowling a few bouncers when I was in my 30s. He kept urging me to pull. Then I saw that one ball for which I had visualized a proper pull shot, playing it down, and I beat deep square leg four feet to his left. I hit it that hard. That clean. So I felt: this is exactly what I had imagined and this is exactly what happened.”
This was caring. Caring about excelling. About coming on top of a much-awaited contest between bat and ball. This was the first glimpse that Kohli wanted to excel in the grandest format of the game.
Cut to scenes seven months later. After taking the world by storm in white-ball cricket in the first half of the year, Kohli made his way to England, again having never played Test cricket in the country, wanting to show how good he had become in the preceding few years.
However, the next few weeks proved to be a nightmare for him as he could make just 134 runs in 10 innings and saw India get hammered 1–4 in the five-Test series.
Four months later, with Ravi Shastri serving as Team Director, Kohli arrived in Australia having to prove a point and again show that it was the Test format which mattered the most to him, even ahead of a looming World Cup defense in early 2015.
Initially hesitant, Kohli opted to listen to Shastri’s piece of advice of standing a few steps outside the crease to counter the moving ball in Australian conditions.
The ploy worked and how. Kohli amassed four Test hundreds in eight innings to erase the nightmares of England and deliver for his side. It once again proved that he was willing to go the extra mile to excel in Test cricket.
The series also marked the beginning of a crucial phase in Kohli’s career as he became India’s newest Test captain in January 2015. It was time now to embrace Test cricket as ‘the’ format for Kohli.
And how did he embrace. After a lull year in 2015 with the bat, he returned in 2016 to score 1215 runs in 12 matches at an average of over 75.
Then, in 2017, he made 1059 runs in 10 Tests, again averaging over 75.
But it was 2018, when Kohli the batsman in Test cricket really peaked. Keep the numbers aside for a second, there were three performances, which will be remembered for Kohli alone, in the years to come.
The first one came at Centurion- an imperious 153.
The next one came at Edgbaston- a spell binding 149, which was a show of discipline at first and sublimity in the end.
The third and final one came at the new stadium at Perth. It was the WACA in 2012 which gave the wings to Kohli’s Test career. Six years later, he produced an absolute masterpiece in the same city, scoring a 123 and letting his bat do all the talking.
India went on to win that series and in the final press conference, Kohli termed the series win in Australia bigger than winning the ultimate prize in cricket- the World Cup. It may well have sounded like a slightly over-the-top statement, but it indicated what winning an overseas Test series meant for Kohli.
But, that Perth hundred has proven to be Kohli’s final big performance in Test cricket, so far. The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic meant matches were fewer than before in 2020 and when 2021 arrived, it brought with it the first real draught of big scores in Kohli’s career.
As he gets sets to play his 100th Test at Mohali, Kohli will hope that like in Australia in 2014, a hundred at the IS Bindra Stadium against Sri Lanka will liberate him. It will give him the new lease of life that everyone wishes comes sooner rather than later.
Because for Test cricket’s sake, Kohli must get back to being the format’s greatest marketing man.
